What is a totally original Singaporean sound?

litford

litford

New member
I'm curious to know what some of you think an original Singaporean sound would sound like?

I'm curious because i was reading this thread about "What's wrong with the Singapore music scene" and one of the arguments was that plenty of bands are rip-offs, and the lament that Singapore in general has no culture on it's own.

I'm going to say that yes, influences abound, but it's not just a Singaporean condition, but a global phenomena. I think most bands out there 'copy', or are at least influenced by the past, or whatever scene they're playing in. it's natural.. if everyone was "original" in terms of sound, there would be no longevity to even having a sound. Everything would be dissonant. if there was one sound for one person, we'd never connect through music.

i think as bands, we borrow from our influences, some more than others. But what makes us original is the "spin" we put to our music. Finding the right pieces that fit, and ultimately what makes a song.

Timberland samples eurotrance and puts it into hip-hop / pop. It'd be seen as ripping off to purists, yet perhaps genius to someone who can appreciate the three different genres and fit them into one.

The Strokes sounding like the garage rock of The Rolling Stones? some might scream sacrilege, others might see more minute influences, or an update of an original sound and the simplicity of their songwriting..

So what is a totally original Singaporean sound?
- the accent?
- the riffs?
- the technicality?
- the arrangements?

I think they're all recyclable, but the heart and soul is what makes the sound, Singaporean.

here's a small explanation: for anyone who's written a song or recorded.. you're pouring your experience into the music. That's "Singaporean" written all over it. Not how it sounds to the listener's eyes.. but the integrity of the songwriter, the engineer recording, where it was recorded, how it was recorded, who your second hand guitar was owned by before. that's Singaporean, that's who we are.. and damn right i'm proud of Singapore's music.
 
+100 to Litford.

Most of either the most popular or most critically acclaimed bands ( yup, big differences ) out there in the world borrowed a leaf or two from a predecessor somewhere, doesn't make their music any less honest or bad.

If you don;t like how something sounds, it may also be personal opinion. And how someone writes or makes a song sound, is also personal opinion.

Back then, a lot of kids called the best local bands of the late 80s and early 90s rip-offs.. today they are calling them pioneers, you go figure.
 
The sound. We need to use our accent, but not to show that we uses singlish... and we need to have our own amps and effects. Like there's marshall from USA and VOX from british.
 
Let me try to break it down..

Ultimately, for me, music is universal.

First, you ask about whether Singaporean music needs to have a Singaporean accent but different Singaporeans speak English differently, some have neutral accents but correct enunciation, some have a more Chinese/Malay/Indian 'sound' to it, some don't even speak proper English.

Sure it may sound cute to you but it may sound crude to an outsider. Hell, they may even dismiss it as weird or low-class. It is, at the end of the day, subjective.

So, language cannot be a defining factor, I think. Just look at jazz, it is music born out of the African slaves' sufferings but you don't associate Afrikaan or other indigenous African language with it. Nor do jazz singers sing with a heavy African accent.

"- the riffs?
- the technicality?
- the arrangements?"

These are just ways of making music, a means to achieve a product, that are songs that are then interpreted and subsequently appreciated (or hated) by the listener.

It makes it more difficult if you talk about the general or mainstream music nowadays which are made commonly using contemporary modern instruments, like the guitar, the drums, the bass guitar, the piano, the keyboards, etc etc.

So, do you need to insert an er-hu/gamelan/tabla sound to tell the listener that the music is made in Singapore? That would be impossible because it can be made in China or Indonesia or India, in that case. How about the other races' sounds in Singapore? Is there a 'Eurasian instrument'?

I think we should focus more on generating quality music that can achieve greatness on the world stage, and naturally people will ask where the music is from, and thus we can be proud to say it is an original composed, written and recorded in Singapore. It can be anything from popular radio-friendly music, a music score for a blockbuster movie or a best-selling game, ANYTHING.

I remember listening to Scorpions for the first time, and enjoying the music but not really caring after learning they were from Germany, and not the USA.

:cool:
 
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Go to any coffeeshops, where there are plenty of people,sit down and listen to the languages,words,etc

Observe for around a month, you can get the Singaporean sound.
 
like what heckler said. music is universal. no such thing as a singaporean sound.
 
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i think the singapore sound should be like what singapore is,
a melting pot.
we're influenced by so many different types of music, so many genres,
we shouldn't blindly copy them, we shouldn't "worship" them,
instead we should assimilate these influences and create what we think best portrays ourselves. ( i'm not sure if assimilate is the best word)

like take America for example,
the current America is made up of foreigners from different countries in the past, people from France, Britain, German, and even from Korea and Japan migrated to America to do business.
despite the lack of a common culture and identity, they were able to merge the different cultures together to form what we know today as USA.
of course this took place over a hundred years so well, Singapore is still kind of young uh?
maybe time for rites of passage liao.
 
not really.

you have good bands like electrico.

though sometimes i find bands' accent a bit forced, eg flybar (no offence, im a HUGE fan of them). sometimes the accent of Ian can get a bit forced, ie trying to negate the singaporean accent.

one band that we can proudly say has the "original singaporean sound" is Rudra. innovative band, mixing hindi chants and music with death metal. though not really "singaporean" in ideas, still a singaporean band nonetheless :D
 
Music is boundless, you do what you like...hardly anything sounds original but hey if its dope, its still dope...you don't have to try hard to be original to be really original though, follow your heart...
 
they may be so-so but they're different from the normal bands.
that's what people want.
you don't have to be great,
you just have to offer something that no one has, and people will want you.
 
what i notice is that most singaporeans respond to sounds of trella, caracal, west grand and you know the rest. the clap-along beats, the crunchy riffs, powerful vocals (a couple of hot guys wouldnt hurt either)
 
when i think singaporean, first bands that come to mind-

Boredphucks/The Suns, Force Vomit, Plainsunset.

They well and truly embrace their identity and don't try to be something they're not. I love 'em all.
 
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